


Make your own joke about wolves

by apiphile



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Paris (City), Pointless, assumes knowledge of fanon relating specifically to stuff i write, cross-dressing, silliness, suck it up i'm still writing this pairing and you can't stop me, tom hardy in a dress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-27
Updated: 2011-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-17 08:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apiphile/pseuds/apiphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pointless fluff. "End of Mr Eames" canon (http://archiveofourown.org/series/5935)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make your own joke about wolves

At four in the afternoon Ariadne's cell phone trills like a canary whose cage has just been kicked, startling her guiltily from her doze and leading her to realise that that her forehead has entered a row of "B"s across an invoice sheet on her laptop.

She fumbles for the cell and grabs it just before the last ring, stabbing at the connect button with her thumb; the cell is old, and constitutes her private line. It's ceased to appal her that she needs a separate line for her personal life, and rather become a source of comfort that the obnoxious, ancient noise which is supposed to mimic an analogue phone and fails to signals intrusions from people she _wants_ to speak to. And her parents.

The phone is warm from the same beam of sunlight that has baked her back and sent her to sleep; the voice that emanates from the fuzzy speaker warms her heart. "Are you home? I've lost my keys."

Admittedly she would be a little more contented if he ever called before his return home and used a sentence that didn't contain the words "lost", "borrow", or "no money".

Under which circumstances she would suspect him of being an imposter.

"How?"

"It's a very long story, but I promise it's a good one. There are explosions, a car chase, some exceptionally breath-taking stunts, and a debonair and dashing hero."

Ariadne sighs and closes her laptop before anything can happen to it; Eames's reports on his attempts to earn money have been known to induce a certain degree of wine-hurling and shouting on her part, and while she suspects self-control would be a useful addition to her domestic life, it's easier to avoid computer-related damage by hiding the thing than by _not throwing a glass of wine at Eames's head_.

"Is any of it true?"

"About … somewhere between eighty-five and seventy percent, depending on whether I decide the thing with the pig works."

"The thing with the pig doesn't work," Ariadne says, decisively. "Where are you?"

"Round the corner, hiding in a grey 2005 BMW." He doesn't even bother trying to make it sound normal, which is something of a relief.

"Are …" her voice drops, and she's annoyed with herself for being concerned when he's more than capable and indeed _prone_ to inventing entire series of events just because he thinks they sound good, "are you hurt?"

"I won't lie to you, sweetheart, my feelings are mortally wounded that you've taken a set against the bit with the pig before I've even told it to you, but other than a bruised ego and twisted ankle I am at the pinnacle of fitness."

"You're an asshole," Ariadne sighs, rubbing the sleep from her eyes slowly. She hadn't been planning on leaving the apartment today, and fragments of dried mascara cling to the side of her fingers from last night's meeting, proving as ever that whatever she's adept at it's not 'removing make-up perfectly'. " _Why_ are you hiding in a car?"

"Er, you'll see when I get here," Eames says, radiating embarrassed evasiveness until she wants to kick him in the ankle down the phone.

Ariadne pats at her hair – humiliatingly lank and lifeless and in need of a wash – and decides against it. No one needs to see her like this. "No. If you’re not hurt then you can come to the apartment and ring the buzzer like a normal human being and not make me put my shoes on."

"Yes, well, excuse my lack of contrition," Eames says huffily, but there's a clunk and a scrape, and a minute later she hears the grumble of Parisian traffic pass the other end of the line, a little distant and tinny but undoubtedly the same purr and honk of motorists as that passing by the open window beside her.

Ending the call, Ariadne considers for a moment whether it's very silly of her to want to scrub the last of the mascara off her face and find something a little less lived-in to be wearing when she lets him back in; after all, this is _Eames_ , who – and it was his fault, anyway – has seen her vomiting past-the-turn mussels into a bucket. 'A bit sweaty and underdressed' is far from the least attractive state he's seen her in.

Ariadne digs a packet of tissues out from under the cutting mat, spits into the centre of one, and scrubs at her eyelids all the same.

She's finished with both eyes and found a top which doesn't cling to the small of her back like a frightened toddler before she realises he's taking an inordinately long time to arrive. With anyone else she'd just assume they'd stopped for a cigarette or something, but this is _Eames_ and Eames has, technically, this month at least, given up again. And so she calls him back:

"You're taking your time," Ariadne mutters.

"Shoes," Eames says irritably.

"What?"

"Yes, well." He hangs up.

Ariadne stares at the phone for a while before shaking her head and closing up the open file folders on the table; it's becoming increasingly likely that there's either going to be a wine-throwing incident or a 'patching up Eames' adventure, and she's not sure which she likes least. The red-cheeked rage always makes her feel humiliated and unsteady for getting so out of her own control, but seeing him framed in the doorway with his own blood on his face makes her entire collection of internal organs shrivel up in fright…

There's still no buzz on the doorbell, and for a moment she honestly considers taking apart the intercom by the door to see if something has gone wrong inside. It's a very short moment: no one would consider her an electronics expert, and Eames still has his _phone_ , along with a propensity for calling up and harassing her –

A deafening honk of car horns outside and some loud, amused-sounding French indicates some sort of disturbance outside and, even without being able to make out what the cause is over the din, Ariadne has this _feeling_ she knows who is responsible.

The feeling is vindicated a heartbeat or two later when the apartment buzzer sounds for so long that she's sure he's just leaning on it with his shoulder.

"Get off the buzzer," she shouts into the intercom, in the hopes that it's going right into his ear and deafening him.

"Get down the stairs," Eames retorts, "or I'm going to run off with the nice German tourist who just propositioned me."

Ariadne gets off the buzzer, and, barefoot and stopping only to check that she definitely has her keys in her pocket, patters down the stairwell. It is wide and characteristically cold, with stone steps and a tendency to echo forever with the slightest noise, because someone involved in the design of these apartments many, many years ago was some kind of sadist, and there's a good chance that one flight of stairs covers more square metres than the whole of her apartment.

When she yanks open the door to the street she's expecting, perhaps, a bedraggled-looking Eames. A hungover Eames, maybe. Dyspeptic Eames, tired Eames, Eames carrying something heavy, or in direct contravention of his claims, a badly-injured Eames. What she is not expecting – and later she's unsure as to why it had never crossed her mind before – is Eames standing with better posture than she's really seen him use before, in a red knee-length cocktail dress with a diamante clasp on one shoulder, phone in hand and some rather professional-looking make-up.

"Oh," Ariadne says, because her mind is rebelling against providing her with any other words.

"Can I come inside?" Eames has the grace to at least pretend to look sheepish. Outside a small child is pointing at him and whispering; his hair is not set in its usual solid Ken-doll peak but instead slicked back every bit as rigorously, and he's wearing clip-on earrings.

Ariadne looks at his shoes. They are also red, and were she the kind of woman who gave any kind of a crap about shoes she'd undoubtedly be able to identify them; as it is they look expensive, French, and like they would cripple her immediately if she ever tried to walk in them. The heels are longer than her hand is wide.

"So that's what kept you."

He smiles and leans on the doorframe. "Can I come inside, _please_ ," Eames repeats, angling his hip the way Marilyn Monroe used to. It's startlingly effective and wholly feminine, and Ariadne's brain again rejects the possibility of actually making sense of anything in favour of merely running around in a small circle while squawking that his lipstick matches his fucking shoes.

"Why didn't you just take them off?" she manages, eventually.

"Would have ruined the stockings."

"Why didn't you take _them_ off?"

He bats his eyelashes — _his_ mascara is as full and evenly-spread as if it's only just been applied, although there are tiny, tiny little grey smudges below the lower lashes — and half-whispers, half-mouths, "Because my thighs rub."

Ariadne steps aside from the door to let him pass, which he does with exaggerated dignity and a perturbing roll of the hips, and a heavy, musty perfume washes over her like the wake of a ship. She closes the door, and Eames immediately hops on one foot and unbuckles the first shoe with far more Eames-like movements.

"Also, I admit," he adds, his face briefly out of sight, "I did want to see the look on your face when you realised I can walk in heels better than you can."

"… You're going to explain this, right?"

"Oh it's a fantastic story," Eames grimaces, poking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, a dot of pink between dark red lips, "Fantastic. It will take at least two bottles of wine."

He removes the second shoe, slumps, and stretches. By the end of the stretch he seems to have changed shape somehow, becoming less like some terrifying hybrid of a pin-up girl and Eames and more like Eames in a worryingly flattering dress.

"But it will have to wait until I've had a shower and stopped wearing stockings because dear god my thighs feel like they've been sandpapered –" he adds, but Ariadne shakes her head.

"No, you're going to explain as soon as we get inside," she says, leading him up the stairs without a backward glance, "And you're not showering until you've finished."

She thought, foolishly, that she'd kept the hoarseness out of her voice, that she sounded only annoyed and weirded out. Of course she's wrong; of course Eames – Eames, of all people, who reads the footsteps of sleepy commuters the way other people read novels – can see beneath her never-very-brilliant mask, because he's always trying to look behind everyone else's deceptions. Even when they're not perpetrating any.

"It's a _long_ story," Eames reiterates cautiously, as she pushes him bodily through the doorway. His back is sun-warm under the soft, smooth fabric of his cocktail dress, and when her fingers slip onto his skin she nearly digs her nails in, as if she's trying to stop him from leaving again.

The door swings slowly, slowly shut behind her.

"You have a long, long time," Ariadne assures him, steering him by the waist toward the Ugly Sofa that they've unofficially determined to be His Domain, and with which he is – she is privately pleased to note – still clashing horribly, in spite of his sudden and suspicious aesthetic improvement. "Start at the begin—no, wait. _Don't_ start at the beginning."

She pushes him onto the sofa with the tips of her fingers on what's currently serving as his décolletage, a gesture rather than force, and as Eames makes very familiar moue with his unfamiliarly deep scarlet painted lips, Ariadne spots a bottle of wine under the damn sofa which will – almost certainly – end up thrown over him at some point. She can feel it in the air like the smell of wet sidewalks after the rain.

"Start at the part where you explain very clearly why you're dressed up like a centre spread from _Vogue_ ," Ariadne finishes, leaving him stranded on the sofa. The corkscrew has at least migrated back to the right part of the kitchen, and finds her hand after only a moment of fumbling.

"Practice," Eames says, and when she looks back over her shoulder, back into the little living room, he's sprawled along the sofa in the most unladylike fashion, his knees hanging apart and leaving her with an unasked-for view of gusset and stocking-tops.

"I said _clearly_ , not so succinctly that you just obfuscate all the more," Ariadne mutters, returning with the corkscrew held in front of her like a duellist's rapier. "Practicing what?"

Eames raises a sole eyebrow, as if she is being very stupid to ask, and Ariadne inclines her head very slightly downward toward the corkscrew, as if he is putting his eyes at risk by implying she's an idiot. It's an established dance, although usually she prefers throwing a sneaker at him to threatening him with a corkscrew, as she's pretty sure she can't _actually_ blind him with the former.

"Practicing _what_?"

"Obfuscate," Eames echoes, smirking. "Oh, really."

" _Eames_."

"Well," he says, censorious, as if she's made some silly social blunder now. "It is more or less my middle name."

" _Eames_ ," Ariadne rolls her eyes and waves the corkscrew at him. "Pass me the wine."

He hands it to her without a word, and pokes out his tongue – she pays it little attention, briefly annoyed by how well he has applied his nail polish – as she takes the neck of it in hand, the weight pulling her arm down for a second.

" _When first I practice to deceive_ ," Eames offers, watching her intently as she struggles with the bottle, which he _knows_ she hates and which he is almost _certainly_ doing on purpose, the antagonistic bastard. "Or rather, while the imagination is a tool of endless variety and depth, it does need occasional assistance from the treasure trove of memory –"

"You can be insufferable all night but you're staying on that fucking sofa until you stop, until you stop, what's the fucking word – _circumlocuting_ ," Ariadne sets the corkscrew against the top of the wine bottle and waits a breath until he looks like he's about to interrupt her, "And I know you know what that means so don't make the himbo face."

Eames rearranges the skirt of his cocktail dress around his knees a little better, until she can't see how neatly he's tucked his balls away into what looks like a rather narrow strip of black cloth. "I wasn't going to make the 'himbo' face. Call this –" he takes in his outfit, his immaculate make-up, the red shoes resting by the sofa, "– research for future forgeries." He catches himself. "Practice."

Ariadne, temporarily distracted from the wine bottle, points the corkscrew at him like an extension of an accusatory finger. "And you didn't think to stuff your bra?"

He flips her a red-painted bird and says in an entirely pleasant, polite, and deliberately obnoxious voice, "Do _you_ ever think to stuff–"

The wine bottle and corkscrew drop onto the floor, saved by the thickness of the bottle's base from any cracks and spillages, as Ariadne lunges across the last few inches to slap him, hard, across the cheek with the back of her hand.

It stings, but she's learned that it hurts her less than hitting him with the tender palm of her hand, even if the satisfying ringing sound is less this way; Eames turns his head with the blow, and almost immediately his cheek rushes to imitate his dress and lipstick. Even under the powder – and it's good powder, there's barely a fragment of it on her knuckles when she inspects them – the surge of red, blood under skin, is like wine through water.

"Welcome home," she says under her breath, when he catches her eye and takes too long inhaling for his own breathing to sound natural; she can feel an interested answering pulse somewhere lower than her belly. Which is entirely _his_ fault for going away for so long.

"Mm," Eames says, trying to kiss her.

She pulls her head away.

"What? You don't like the dress?"

"Hmm," Ariadne says, shaking her head.

Eames sags. "Stockings? Hairstyle? Horrible earrings? Perfume is too much?"

"N-nooo." Ariadne regards him with one eye shut; Eames, sprawled over the sofa and looking like someone has photoshopped a debutante over his lazy swoon. She can see his chest hair venturing out of the top of the dress, and in the aftermath of the backhander there's perhaps a little more tension in the crotch fabric than there was before.

"It's a very _good_ dress," Eames says sulkily. "Don't tell me you have some mad objection to me wearing a very nice dress."

Outside the window a scooter horn and a car horn briefly honk out the opening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony before settling into a more traditionally cacophonous disagreement about the rules of the road. A cloud rudely smears itself across the sun, dimming the beam across the apartment floor to a measly, diffuse nothing, and Ariadne prods Eames's lower lip thoughtfully with her forefinger.

"No," she says eventually, "I just don’t think that shade of lipstick's going to look as good on me as it does on you."


End file.
